"I must go to--day, and immediately," interrupted the stranger. "There are some who wait for me," he added with a sigh--"and there are some, too,who follow me." And the momentary look of softness passed from his features between the clauses of the sentence, and gave place to an expression almost of ferocity. "Now, is it finished? That is well. See, I can walk as firmly as though I had never been wounded. Give me some bread: pay yourself for your hospitality with this piece of gold, and adieu." The priest put back the gold with displeasure. "I am not an innkeeper, said he; "and I do not sell my hospitality." "As you will, but pardon me; and now farewell, my kind host." So saying he took the bread, which Margarita, at her master's command, very unwillingly gave him, and soon his tall figure disappeared among the thick foliage of a wood which surrounded the house, or rather the cabin. An hour had scarcely passed, when musket-shots were heard close by, and the unknown reappeared, deadly pale, and bleeding from a deep wound near the heart. "Take these," said he, giving pieces of gold to his late host; "they are for my children--near the stream--in the valley." [missing pages] deadly agency, which it had power to exert. Even the roadway leading up and down the mountain is not always safe, it would seem, from these dangerous intruders. It is rocky and solitary, and is bordered every where with gloomy ravines and chasms, all filled with dense and entangled thickets, in which, and in the cavernous rocks of which the strata of the mountain are composed, wild beast and noxious animals of every kind find a secure retreat. The monks relate that not many years ago a servant of the convent, who had been sent down the mountain to Haifa, to accompany a traveler, was attacked and seized by a panther on his return. The panther, however, instead of putting his victim immediately to death, began to play with him as a cat plays with a mouse which she has succeeded in making her prey-holding him gently with her claws, for a time, and then, after drawing back a little, darting upon him again, as if to repeat and renew the pleasure of capturing such a prize. This was continued so long, that the cries of the terrified captive brought to the spot some persons that chanced to be near, when the panther was terrified in her turn, and fled into the forests; and then the man was rescued from his horrible situation unharmed.